My father
was in his office in the next room; I could hear him asking questions to a
law student whom he was interviewing for a clerking position.
Apparently my father had decided he needed to hire a law clerk and he had posted an
announcement at the law school about the clerking position. Only two people
had applied – the fellow being interviewed and myself. Finally my father and
the law student walked
into the room where I was; when the fellow sat down, I recognized him as
someone whom I knew in Portsmouth. My father talked to him a while longer and
finally said, "Well thank you very much."

The fellow looked a bit disconcerted that my father was
saying good-bye so quickly without saying anything else. The fellow stood and
walked out the side door. He seemed to have a bit of difficulty leaving at
first, but he finally made it out.

My father returned to his office and I followed him. I knew he was definitely going to hire me and not the other
fellow. I could see the other fellow boarding his car outside. Although I knew
the fellow had no hope of landing this job, I thought that he at least had the
courage to come in there and interview and that the interview would have been
good practice for him.

I turned to my father and asked him if he really needed a law
clerk. He said he wasn't sure, but he thought he did, and then he asked me if I
were going to be busy on the coming weekend. I told him I didn't have any
classes that week, but that I would be taking exams.

My father walked out of the room – and Louise walked in. She sat down
and began talking about what had just happened. She said she had come in just as
the other fellow had been leaving and she had let him out the door. She said he had
looked a bit upset. Suddenly she handed me a little note which had some
scrawling on it, apparently some sort of little cartoon. She said Sherwood
(one of her fellow law students) had given it to her. I asked, "What's Sherwood doing giving you little
notes?"

She acted evasive, then told me she had received a letter
from someone. She had told me before that she had been receiving letters from a
California girl who had somehow obtained Louise's address and had begun writing her.
I looked at the letter, which was a hand-made card with a picture in the middle.
At first I thought the picture was hand-drawn, but then I realized it was an
actual picture pasted on the card. The picture appeared to be of green shrubs.

Louise showed me another card which had previously been sent to her.
The card had pictures of doors and a garden on it. Each picture had a little
mouth-like opening on it and out of the openings were words such as "Doors can
talk" and "Gardens can talk" and "Porches can talk."

I was quite disturbed that Louise had been receiving the
letters because I thought there was something strange about it. I was worried
that something might be wrong with the girl in California and that she might
somehow try to hurt Louise. I was afraid the girl might be insane.

I tried to think of what to say to Louise so she would be
careful, but something (perhaps something Louise said) made me realize the
cards hadn't actually been coming from the girl in California, but had been
coming from Sherwood. Louise then admitted to me that the cards had been
coming from Sherwood and that she had just made up the story about the girl in
California. I asked, "Why did you lie to me?"

She tried to evade the question and she said, "I said it was from
a friend."

I said, "You said it was from a girl in California."

She said, "Well Sherwood is kind of like a girl friend. Just a
friend."

It was difficult for me to accept she had been lying to
me. My first impulse was to reach out, grab her by the neck and throttle her, but I was afraid if I did grab her, I would choke her too hard. I could just
imagine her having to wear some kind of neck cast. I didn't want that to
happen.